Jump to content

No NPC mentions policy


lemmy101

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 79
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

lemmy101, I just went through the whole steam thread that started this, and I can't help but notice that between that thread and this one there's like 7 pages of people all telling the angry poster to fuck off and TIS to keep up the good work. I can't think of many other games studios that garner such damn near unanimous support from it's community.

 

A former colleague of mine used to say "Give me your numbers I'll make em say what I want" but even he would have a hard time putting a negative spin on your current 92% favorable steam reviews. I'll chuck off the occasional mean thread to that Dunning-Kruger effect some guy mentioned: Unskilled people fail to appreciate the difficulty of jobs that require skill :P

 

Just thought I'd point out those facts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a stupid idea but why not arrange an event where Indiestone invites dissatisfied (but polite) customers to play as zombies against PZ developers playing as survivors. Anyone who manages to eat a developer then gets their money back and coupons or something.

 

Thus Indiestone gets the therapy of blowing the shit out of lots of people and unhappy customers (may) get their money back and have bragging rights of having eaten devs who made them unhappy and the rest of us get to watch and laugh.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think people need to stop antagonizing the Devs for 'taking to long' if you asked me. I prefer perfection over rushed work. I'd rather not have the NPCs in my world doing 360s on the spot because their navigation programming wasn't refined.

 

I love Project Zomboid because it genuinely gives me goose bumps, makes me anxious about every single step I take, makes me look behind myself (in-game) very frequently because I'm never safe, worry about my condition, really think about what I'm going to do in this apocalyptic world and struggle to survive. It's a game that's at its prime and people seriously need to understand that they do not want to make the same silly mistakes other Game Devs in the same field have with NPCs. It's an incredibly ambitious project and the fact they've taken so long obviously means it isn't going to be some write-and-go programming.

 

"Good things come to those who wait." -Lemmy101, probably... after all this god damn stress.

 

I love you guys for what you've made and how far you've come with this game. It's slowly becoming the reason I don't go outside to hang out with friends anymore because it's a lot more fun to survive (sorry, friends.)

 

So until you're ready to release what we're all super excited for, I, like any good fan of the game, will wait patiently and struggle to survive against Zeds as always. Seriously you guys, thank you for giving me the experience I have gained from this game. I forever look forward to what comes next.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I kind of miss the old homicidal maniac NPCs of old.

You mean all of those "Special Infected" sort of zombies with shotguns?

They were under the blad grey alien mind control, that is why they were killing humans with shotguns, when they did, the blad aliens would go up to him and make him one fo them like a promotion. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lemmy, dude

 

You just need proper PR management/team/person working for you to deal with freaky players, negative feedback and unfulfilled players expectations. It is important thing to keep your sales grown.

 

I do not know either you are pr person or a developer in IndieStone, but IndieStone management must remember simple rules:

 

- Never allow your development team to read and react for user feedback. At least try to prevent them to do it by proper planning of their work schedule

 

- Filter and analyze any user pos|neg user feedback 101 times before you decide to put it in project plan

 

- Think twice before you ask PR to announce release of long-expected feature

 

I'm playing PZ for 2 years. I'm working with web applications development and time to time forced to deal with negative user feedback at my job, so I know what I'm talking about.

 

I know how difficult is to construct bug-free logic for additional characters in game, how much efforts of bunch of people they need. Even I sometimes thinks that such features (ex. car driving) just can ruin game atmosphere after their releases. So sometimes better to cancel or freeze feature developments.

 

Do not perceive user feedback personally!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Vinc, how huge is your team?

 

I work in webdev too and sometimes it's just not possible to have a separate PR manager. Plus, good PR people are hard to find (and worth their weight in axes). We've had cycles of people who are only great at talking but suck about extracting user requirements. It will be good for a while but after some time the gap between what the user wants and what the PR person filters and relays to you becomes huge and affects your application. In our case, we eventually ditched the middleman and went and talked to the users ourselves. Sometimes that is the best way. I imagine Lenny and the team has also settled for this.

 

It IS very stressful so not everyone on the team has to do it. But having at least one dev (in this case, lenny) split his time between dev and user interaction/requirements extraction can make a huge difference vs just locking your team down in a bunker and coding for years without feedback. Or relying on some random person to understand the technical difficulties and explain both sides of user/dev in a conversation.

 

Do not perceive user feedback personally!

This is true but really hard to achieve. Especially if you care too much about the product. Or if the rants attack you as a person, and not the game.

 

I'm not saying lenny has to vent every time a shitty rant vs PZ crops up. Obviously people complain about PZ every day, but he doesn't answer back everyday. Occasionally though, this kind of impassioned post from a user-facing dev is unavoidable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Vinc, how huge is your team?

Last time when we had high load service devteam had four devs plus one qa

 

Non-devs

There was support guy to work with feedback at forums, PR-SMM girl to maintain smm activity. But I had to take care of their management too still

 

Right now I have project in development stage only

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But having at least one dev (in this case, lenny) split his time between dev and user interaction/requirements extraction can make a huge difference vs just locking your team down in a bunker and coding for years without feedback

Yeah, maybe it is better. But proper decision would be to hire part time PR, or just ask any non-dev friend or loyal player to repost your release notes in his blog fo free.

 

Just what I said before

Devs must not communicate with product consumer directly OR one of dev/founder must have management skills and communicative skills (ie patience))

 

Anyway devs rocks! pz is great game! NPC sucks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, that's one of the things that separates TIS from other companies and, frankly, makes it nicer to deal with them, personal foibles and all.

 

I suppose myself, Drake, Gonzo, Tooks, and the others fills in as volunteer PR, but sometimes there's nothing better than having a dev respond . . . sometimes excessively . . . to certain people. If they won't take my word for it, they'll usually take a developers'.

 

For instance, we have 7 pages of praise (and 3 posts of scorn) on Lemmy's novella. 

 

This has the added benefit of being something that can be referred to in the future.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any thoughts on selling merchandise,so you have some extra revenue? Honestly these days you can have a costume emblem posted on shirts,coffee mugs and all that crap you can think of. I know their is a lot involved on your part, since what you would be paying has to be less then what your making obviously. Have you guys thought about it?   I would love to have a shirt of spiffo or some zombies with the logo and all the stuff.

 

Now i can see why Heisenberg from breaking bad had such a hard part to complete. He made a product but always had trouble in distribution.    

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any thoughts on selling merchandise,so you have some extra revenue? Honestly these days you can have a costume emblem posted on shirts,coffee mugs and all that crap you can think of. I know their is a lot involved on your part, since what you would be paying has to be less then what your making obviously. Have you guys thought about it?   I would love to have a shirt of spiffo or some zombies with the logo and all the stuff.

 

Now i can see why Heisenberg from breaking bad had such a hard part to complete. He made a product but always had trouble in distribution.    

 

I would love a spiffo plushie lol

 

Maaayyybeee. Later. See, no ETAs. :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having a PR middleman between us and our community would rather defeat at least one of the reasons why we went indie in the first place ;)

 

See here: http://theindiestone.com/binky/2011/04/15/why-indie-games-development-trumps-commercial-development/

 

Yeah negative comments are going to affect you more adversely than positive comments make you feel glowy. That's the nature of the beast. But the alternative? People who speak on our behalf and filter out comments before we get to see them? No thanks ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just adding a comment of love and support to counteract any negativity.

 

I've been assisting a couple of board game designers with their indie projects. The unprovoked online vitriol that sometimes target board game designers is baffling and disheartening. I think it just happens to be the age we live in.

 

If any TIS staff or mods find themselves in Los Angeles, shoot me a PM. I can hook you up with some fun things to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dunno why but this whole thread reminds me of Garry Newman, dev of Rust:

 

How do you deal with constant abuse every single day from people you have never met?

You have to grow a thick skin. It shouldn't be, but it's part of being known for anything. Not going to lie it's depressing sometimes. Sometimes you work your balls off, from 7am to 1am for a week, you put a patch out containing some of the best shit you've ever done. Then an hour later someone sends you a message calling you lazy for not adding a particular feature.It's pretty soul destroying sometimes.
 

Shit must be very hard for all devs that are in contact with their community.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...